One thing I hear a lot in the publishing world is how important the first line is to a story.

Whether it is a short article or a 600-page novel, everything seems to rest on hooking the reader in that first sentence, that first thought, that should (in theory) set the tone for the rest of the piece.

But, how much does the first line really matter? And should it be suspenseful or sexy, long or short, shocking or descriptive?

The following are first lines from some new works, old-favorite, and obscure stories.

Would that single sentence entice you to read more? Or would you just pass it by?

Scroll to the bottom to see the list of books that each line is from. You might be surprised!

1. "He sat before the mirror of the second-floor bedroom sketching his lean cheeks with their high bone ridges, the flat broad forehead, and ears too far back on the head, the dark hair curling forward in thatches, the amber-colored eyes wide-set but heavy-lidded."

2. "Off the coast of Kamchatka, Siberia, bundled up and standing on the deck of a German ship, I gripped the railing with oil-stained gloves to avoid being pitched into a heaving ocean the color of a wet gravestone."

3. "The boy's name was Santiago."

4. "Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet."

Thai people usually wear sandals or shoes that are easy to slide on and off because they remove them when going into temples, homes, and even some shops and restaurants.

In Thailand, the head is considered to be the most sacred part of the body (NEVER touch a Thai person on their head), and the feet are considered to be the dirtiest.

Why does this matter to you?

As a traveller, there are a few things you need to be conscious of so that you don't end up insulting the locals.

First of all, traditionally, people sit, sleep, eat and entertain either on the ground or on cushions laid on the ground. As a result, Thai people make sure to remove their shoes (don't want to get the floor dirty!) before sitting in people's homes or on raised platforms in restaurants or at the beach. Shoes are removed before walking into temple buildings as a sign of respect.

It is also very important to never point or gesture at someone with your foot. This can be taken as an insult.

On the same token, you must never point your toes towards a Buddha statue or symbol. That means that if you are sitting down in a temple, you have to sit with both legs to one side (feet up and pointing backward) or on your knees. Don't sit with your legs crossed.

Also keep in mind that while chilling out at a beach lounge, in your hotel lobby, or on a train to be careful about propping your feet on the chair beside you. This can be seen as a sign of disrespect, especially if you leave your shoes on.

17. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851)18. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)19. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868)20. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868-9)21. Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871-2)22. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (1875)23. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884/5)24. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)

25. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (1889)26. The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle (1890)27. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1891)28. New Grub Street by George Gissing (1891)29. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (1895)30. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (1895)31. Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897)32. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899)

33. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser (1900)34. Kim by Rudyard Kipling (1901)35. The Call of the Wild by Jack London (1903)36. The Golden Bowl by Henry James (1904)37. Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe (1904)38. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (1908)39. The History of Mr Polly by HG Wells (1910)40. Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm (1911)

41. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (1915)42. The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (1915)43. The Rainbow by DH Lawrence (1915)44. Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham (1915)45. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1920)46. Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)47. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis (1922)48. A Passage to India by EM Forster (1924)

49. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos (1925)50. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925)51. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (1925)52. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1926)53. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926)54. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1929)55. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (1930)56. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)

65. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)66. Joy in the Morning by PG Wodehouse (1946)67. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren (1946)68. Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry (1947)69. The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen (1948)70. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949)71. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (1951) 72. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (1951)

73. The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (1953)74. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954)75. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)76. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957)77. Voss by Patrick White (1957) 78. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)79. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1960)80. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)

89. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (1977)90. A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul (1979)91. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)92. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (1981)93. Money: A Suicide Note by Martin Amis (1984)94. An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (1986)95. The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald (1988)96. Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (1988)

Whenever an event like the FIFA Women's World Cup or the Summer Olympics comes around, the inevitable debate begins — soccer or football?

Both names are used to represent the same sport all over the world, but as soon as you get to North America, you have to call it soccer or distinguish between American Football and European Football so people don't get confused.

But it is confusing.

First of all, what we in North America know as football actually involves very little kicking. In fact, the foot is almost not used at all. What the Europeans call football, we call soccer. But what does the word "soccer" really mean? Where did that word come from? And is there really a right and wrong name for the sport?

Where do the words come from?

Football was a name that was used for games in medieval Europe that (you guessed it) involved kicking a ball.

Over the years, as the random games evolved into an organized sport, the word became the name for the game that we now know today.

So that gives you a little history of the word "football", but here's the interesting part, a lot of people think that the word "soccer" is an American creation, but it is actually British!

It comes from the game's official name: association football.

In the 19th century when association football was becoming popular, so to was rugby or rugby football, which was its official name. Both sports were commonly known as "football" and this was getting confusing. So, in order to distinguish between the two, rugby football became "rugger" and association football became "soccer".

The New World's part in naming the game

European's actually referred to "football" as "soccer" for a really long time. But, then came the transport of games to the New World. Americans started to call "football" soccer right away, as it helped distinguish the sport from American Football, which was invented in 1869.

The Brits, wanting to distinguish themselves from the Americans, stopped using the word soccer altogether and started referring to it as football again.

And there you have it!

Soccer by any other name is still football — or something like that...

While this is definitely not a read-before-bed book (it's fascinating, but the content requires a more alert mind), The Swerve is well worth the read. And that's not just my opinion — it is a National Book Winner, and won the Pulitzer Prize!

Of course, all Poggio could hope to find were pieces of parchment, and not even ancient ones. But for him these were not manuscripts but human voices.

— from page 180 of "The Swerve" when Poggio is searching for a lost manuscript

Author Stephen Greenblatt takes us on a journey through antiquity to the moment that he believes is what caused a shift — though an imperceptible one at the time — in the world that helped usher in the modern age.

According to Greenblatt, the shift came in the winter of 1417 when former papal secretary Poggio Bracciolini discovered a manuscript buried in a monastic library called The Nature of Things. Written as an epic poem, it seems unlikely, at first, that this document by Lucretius could cause so much change in the world, but Greenblatt makes some very convincing arguments.

The poem actually contained some incredibly revolutionary ideas for the time (remember, it reemerged in an era that was ruled by the Catholic Church and its Inquisition), and the way it was rediscovered and shared with the world is a pretty incredible story!

A man buying vegetables for a traditional Ramadan soup that is eaten when the sun sets in Marrakesh, Morocco

Ramadan is a month-long Islamic holiday that involves fasting, and abstaining from other indulgent activities.

The month it is celebrated changes every year based on the lunar calendar, but it falls in the Northern Hemisphere's summer.

The history of Ramadan

According to the Islamic religion, the first years of the Koran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (the founder of Islam) during the last third of Ramadan, and fasting during this blessed month is considered to be one of the five pillars of the faith. (The other five are the Islamic Creed, daily prayers, alms-giving, and the pilgrimage to Mecca.)

According to my research, fasting during this time is meant to bring you closer to God and to develop a companionship with him, to help you reflect on all that you have, and to develop a sympathy for those in poverty.

The rules of Ramadan

The rules that have to be followed during this holy month are:

NO eating

NO drinking (not even water)

NO fighting

NO smoking

NO sex between sunrise and sunset

If you are from an area of the world located further to the North summer days can last from 6 am-11 pm (or longer), leaving very little time to eat, and A LOT of time to be hungry. (Don’t worry, children, pregnant women, travelers, and sick people are exempt if they want to be.)

Once the sun goes down, the eating and drinking rules are lifted with special food being eaten to help ease out of the daily fast.

Fun Fact

In 2012, Ramadan took place during the Summer Olympic Games. Over 3,000 Muslim athletes fasted and still participated in the games!

During my time as Editor of WHERE Edmonton Magazine, I was lucky enough to have a 30-minute interview with the incomparable David Suzuki. If you are not familiar with him, Suzuki is a Canadian environmentalist, activist, public speaker, writer (he has written more than 50 books!), and teacher.

He is known for hosting the popular television show The Nature of Things, and most recently, for his outspoken remarks against climate change and environmental policies of the Canadian government.

Our interview revolved mostly around his new book Letters To My Grandchildren, and what comes next for the 79-year-old, but we did manage to chat a little bit about some of his environmental concerns as well.

Check out the interview about his book and future plans here, and see some of our environmental-themed conversation below.

The Anthrotorian (A): One thing that you are well known for is your, sometimes controversial, environmental work. At this point, what do you think the biggest threat to the environment is?

David Suzuki (DS): People always ask me, "is it deforestation, is it species extinction, is it the ocean destruction, the ozone layer, or climate change..." I believe that the real challenge or threat is the human mind.

I don't think we have any lack of solutions to the various problems we face, but so long as the human mind clings to its beliefs and values, that is what is limiting us.

For example, you have Stephen Harper — who [was] the Prime Minister of Canada for 10 years — and said that we were not going to do anything about reducing greenhouse gas emissions because it would destroy the economy. So, he elevated the economy above the very atmosphere that keeps us alive.

That is really puzzling to me... You see, we create these ideas about the economy, capitalism, corporations or human borders, the market, and currency, and we act like these are the most important things in the world — that come before clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy, and other species. That is absolutely crazy!

What I say is this: you can't go for three minutes without air or you die.

Think about that.

We walk such a fine line. Three minutes without air and we're dead?! If you have to breathe polluted air all the time, you're sick. So surely everyone in the world would have to agree that clean air has got to be our highest priority. Without that, you are either dead or sick. How then can you use air as a garbage can?

Let's get things straight here — yes, the economy is important, but we MADE the economy.

Air is something that we DID NOT MAKE, and without it we are dead. So surely whatever we do economically shouldn't infringe on the air we breathe...

We need to recognize that we are biological creatures — we are animals — that need clean air, clean water, clean food, and clean energy, or we're dead. Those things have to be protected above EVERYTHING else.

A: Do you see the younger generation approaching this problem differently?

DS: Well, young people are certainly seeing that their future is at risk. That's why you have groups like Youth For Climate Justice.

You see, whatever does or does not happen over the next few years will have little effect on old guys like me... but you guys, you young ones, are going to have to live with it for the rest of your lives. You have everything at stake.

[A big concern I have is that] young people are generally not voting — not because of a lack of interest, but because they do not see the issues that they care about being talked about.

Young people see that politicians aren't paying attention to their issues, so they are going about trying to solve these problems a different way.

But, I call on young people to start raising these issues in the political sphere and their parents and grandparents have to do the same on their behalf — making the concern for our children part of the political agenda. Right now it isn't.

A: When it comes to the climate change issue, what is our biggest hope at this point?

DS: Well, obviously people have to change the way they live and there is a great deal of stuff going on at the grassroots level.

For example, the City of Vancouver [in Canada] has committed to going fossil fuel free by, I think, the year 2020 — they are going to be the greenest city in the world!

There is a lot of amazing things happening at the municipal level, but, we need the top level leadership to commit to getting off fossil fuels.

NOTE: The views expressed by David Suzuki are his own and are not necessarily the views of The Anthrotorian.

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